Laura Schlessinger Marriage and family life Who did she marry? Schlessinger met and married Michael F. Rudolph, a dentist, in 1972 did they remain married? Their divorce was finalized in 1977.
Why did they divorce?
Why did Laura Schlessinger and Michael F. Rudolph divorce?
Schlessinger met and married Michael F. Rudolph, a dentist, in 1972 while she was attending Columbia University. The couple had a Unitarian ceremony. Separating from Rudolph, Schlessinger moved to Encino, California in 1975 when she obtained a job in the science department at the University of Southern California. Their divorce was finalized in 1977.  In 1975, while working in the labs at USC, she met Lewis G. Bishop, a professor of neurophysiology who was married and the father of three children. Bishop separated from his wife and began living with Schlessinger the same year. Speaking as one who went through and has personal experience with the social problems associated with such lifestyle choices, Schlessinger has vociferously proclaimed her disapproval of unwed couples "shacking up" and having children out of wedlock, helping others to not make the bad choices in the first place. According to her friend Shelly Herman, "Laura lived with Lew for about nine years before she was married to him." "His divorce was final in 1979. Bishop and Schlessinger married in 1985. Herman says that Schlessinger told her she was pregnant at the time, which Herman recalls as "particularly joyful because of the happy news." Schlessinger's only child, a son named Deryk, was born in November 1985.  Schlessinger's husband, Lewis G. Bishop, died November 2, 2015, after being ill for 1.5 years.  Schlessinger was estranged from her sister for years, and many thought she was an only child. She had not spoken to her mother for 18 to 20 years before her mother's death in 2002 from heart disease. Her mother's remains were found in her Beverly Hills condo approximately two months after she died, and lay unclaimed for some time in the Los Angeles morgue before Schlessinger had them picked up for burial. Concerning the day that she heard about her mother's death, she said: "Apparently she had no friends and none of her neighbors were close, so nobody even noticed! How sad." In 2006, Schlessinger wrote that she had been attacked in a "vulgar, inhumane manner by media types" because of the circumstances surrounding her mother's death, and that false allegations had been made that she was unfit to dispense advice based on family values. She said that she had not mourned the deaths of either of her parents because she had no emotional bond to them. CANNOTANSWER
CANNOTANSWER
Laura Catherine Schlessinger is an American talk radio host and author.  "The Dr. Laura Program," heard weekdays for three hours on Sirius XM Radio, consists mainly of her responses to callers' requests for personal advice and often features her short monologues on social and political topics. Her website says that her show "preaches, teaches, and nags about morals, values, and ethics."  She is an inductee to the National Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago.

Schlessinger used to combine her local radio career in Los Angeles with a private practice as a marriage and family counselor, but after going into national radio syndication, she concentrated her efforts on The Dr. Laura Program heard each weekday, and on writing self-help books. The books Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives and The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands are among her bestselling works. A short-lived television talk show hosted by Schlessinger was launched in 2000. In August 2010, she announced that she would end her syndicated radio show in December 2010.  Her show moved to the "Sirius XM Stars" satellite radio channel on January 3, 2011. Schlessinger announced a "multiyear" deal to be on satellite radio. On November 5, 2018, her radio program moved to the Sirius XM "Triumph Channel 111."

Early life
Schlessinger was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. She was raised in Brooklyn and later on Long Island. Her parents were Monroe "Monty" Schlessinger, a Jewish American civil engineer, and Yolanda (née Ceccovini) Schlessinger, a Catholic war bride from Italy. Schlessinger has said her father was charming and her mother beautiful as a young woman. She has a sister, Cindy, who is 11 years her junior. Schlessinger has described her childhood environment as unloving and unpleasant, and her family as dysfunctional. She has ascribed some of the difficulty to extended family rejection of her parents' mixed faith Jewish-Catholic marriage. Schlessinger said her father was "petty, insensitive, mean, thoughtless, demeaning, and downright unloving". She described her mother as a person with "pathological pride", who "was never grateful", who "would always find something to criticize," and who "constantly expressed disdain for men, sex, and love". She credited her father with giving her the drive to succeed.

Schlessinger attended Westbury High School and Jericho High School, where she showed an interest in science. She received a bachelor's degree from Stony Brook University. Moving to Columbia University for graduate studies, she earned a master's and PhD in physiology in 1974. Her doctoral thesis was on insulin's effects on laboratory rats. After she began dispensing personal advice on the radio, she obtained training and certification in marriage and family counseling from the University of Southern California, where she worked in the biology department, and a therapist's license from the State of California. In addition, she opened up a part-time practice as a marriage and family therapist.

Radio career

Schlessinger's first appearance on radio was in 1975 when she called in to a KABC show hosted by Bill Ballance. Impressed by her quick wit and sense of humor, Ballance began featuring her in a weekly segment. Schlessinger's stint on Ballance's show led to her own shows on a series of small radio stations. By 1979, she was on the air Sunday evenings from 9:00 to midnight on KWIZ in Santa Ana, California. That year, the Los Angeles Times described her show as dealing with all types of emotional problems, "though sex therapy is the show's major focus".

In the late 1980s, Schlessinger was filling in for Barbara De Angelis' noon-time, relationship-oriented talk show in Los Angeles on KFI, while working weekends at KGIL in San Fernando. Her big break came when Sally Jessy Raphael began working at ABC Radio, and Maurice Tunick, former vice president of talk programming for the ABC Radio Networks, needed a regular substitute for Raphael's evening personal-advice show. Tunick chose Schlessinger to fill in for Raphael.

Schlessinger began broadcasting a daily show on KFI, which was nationally syndicated in 1994 by Synergy, a company owned by Schlessinger and her husband. In 1997, Synergy sold its rights to the show to Jacor Communications, Inc., for $71.5 million. Later, Jacor  merged with Clear Channel Communications and a company co-owned by Schlessinger, Take On The Day, LLC, acquired the production rights. The show became a joint effort between Take On The Day, which produced it, Talk Radio Network, which syndicated and marketed it to radio stations, and Premiere Radio Networks, (a subsidiary of Clear Channel), which provided satellite facilities and handled advertising sales. As of September 2009, Schlessinger  broadcast from her home in Santa Barbara, California, with KFWB as her flagship station. Podcasts and live streams of the show have been available on her website for a monthly fee, and the show was also on XM Satellite Radio.

At its peak, The Dr. Laura Program was the second-highest-rated radio show after The Rush Limbaugh Show, and was heard on more than 450 radio stations. Writing in 1998, Leslie Bennett described the popularity of the show:

 In 2010—her last year on terrestrial radio—she was still #5.

In May 2002, the show still had an audience of more than 10 million, but had lost several million listeners in the previous two years as it was dropped by WABC and other affiliates, and was moved from day to night in cities such as Seattle and Boston. These losses were attributed in part to Schlessinger's shift from giving relationship advice to lecturing on morality and conservative politics. Pressure from gay rights groups caused dozens of sponsors to drop the radio show, as well. In 2006, Schlessinger's show was being aired on about 200 stations. As of 2009, it was tied for third place along with The Glenn Beck Program and The Savage Nation.

Schlessinger used "Hot Talkin' Big Shot", a song by country and blues singer and songwriter Nikki Hornsby, for several years as cue music for her radio program and for a national radio commercial advertising for the show. She also used "New Attitude" by Patti LaBelle.

On August 17, 2010, during an appearance on Larry King Live, Schlessinger announced the end of her radio show, saying that her motivation was to "regain her First Amendment rights", and that she wanted to be able to say what is on her mind without "some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent." Several of her affiliates and major sponsors had dropped her show after her on-air use of a racial epithet on August 10 (see  below). Specifically, she said, "[n-word n-word n-word] is what you hear [in rap]."

On January 3, 2011, Schlessinger's show moved exclusively to Sirius XM Radio.

She currently offers a short podcast of the "Call of the Day" from her SiriusXM daily show, and it is ranked in the top 25 "Kids and Family" podcasts on iTunes

Television show
In 1999, Schlessinger signed a deal with Paramount Domestic Television to produce a syndicated talk show titled Dr. Laura, which was carried in major markets by CBS's owned and operated stations and in 96% of the nation's markets overall for fall 2000. This was viewed as something of a coup by Paramount, as they felt that a popular personality such as Schlessinger could be the spark they needed to sell themselves as a daytime syndication powerhouse rivaling King World and Warner Bros. Television, which distributed the popular topical talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show and the variety talk show The Rosie O'Donnell Show.

Leading up to the September 11, 2000, premiere of Dr. Laura, Schlessinger created a significant amount of controversy. In the months before the premiere of her TV show, Schlessinger called homosexuality a "biological error", said that homosexuality was acceptable as long as it was not public, and said that homosexuals should adopt older children. She also expressed her view that "a huge portion of the male homosexual populace is predatory on young boys." Schlessinger was frequently criticized in LGBT media for these views. Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, an LGBT media watchdog group, began monitoring Schlessinger's on-air comments about LGBT people, posting transcripts of relevant shows on its website.

In March 2000, a group of gay activists launched StopDrLaura.com, an online campaign with the purpose of convincing Paramount to cancel Dr. Laura prior to its premiere. The group protested at Paramount studios, stating her views were offensively bigoted. StopDrLaura.com organized protests in 34 cities in the U.S. and Canada, and picked up on an advertiser boycott of the radio and the TV shows started by another grass-roots organization which called itself "Silence Of The Slams" operating its boycott through AOL Hometown.

On Yom Kippur in 2000, Dr. Laura said she "deeply [regretted] the hurt this situation has caused the gay and lesbian community" and asked for forgiveness, while abstaining from offering a retraction of her words.

Dr. Laura premiered to low ratings and unkind reviews. Critics and viewers complained that the format had been dumbed down and did not stand out from any other daytime talk show. The biting rhetoric that worked well on radio seemed overly harsh for face-to-face discourse, owing to the normal sympathetic nature of most other daytime hosts; the radical change in Schlessinger's demeanor from her radio persona left viewers cold. The television show failed to generate the energy and interest of Schlessinger's radio show.

The credibility of Schlessinger's television program also suffered during its first month, when the New York Post reported that Schlessinger had used show staff to falsely pose as guests on the show. A September 25, 2000, episode named "Readin', Writin', and Cheatin'" featured a so-called college student who specialized in professional note-taking. On the next day's show, "Getting to the Altar," the same guest appeared in different hair and makeup and said she was a woman living with her boyfriend. In fact, the woman was San-D Duchas, a researcher for the show whose name appeared in the closing credits of the shows on which she posed as a guest.

By November 2000, advertisers that had committed to Schlessinger's show had pulled their support due to plummeting ratings. CBS was displeased enough with the ratings that it began looking to either drop the series or move it to late-night slots on its stations within two months of its premiere. Other stations outside of CBS did the same thing, while others moved it to weaker sister stations. Dr. Laura aired its last first-run episode on March 30, 2001, on the stations that continued to air it, with reruns continuing until September 2001.

In 2004, Schlessinger said that although the money and celebrity in television is greater, it is not as meaningful or intimate as radio, and for her, television was a "terrible experience".

Publications

Columns
For several years, Schlessinger wrote a weekly column syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate that was carried in many newspapers, and in Jewish World Review. She discontinued the column in July 2000, citing lack of time due to her upcoming television show. She wrote a monthly column for WorldNetDaily between 2002 and 2004, with one entry in 2006. In 2006, Schlessinger joined the Santa Barbara News-Press, writing biweekly columns dealing with Santa Barbara news, as well as general news and cultural issues discussed on her radio show. She suspended the column in mid-2007, resumed writing it later, then discontinued it in December 2008. She currently writes columns on her blog, on a variety of topics.

Books
Schlessinger has written 13 books for adults and four for children. Several follow the mold of her successful Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, with similarly named books giving advice for men, couples, and parents, while others are more moral in orientation.

Magazine
For several years, Schlessinger published a monthly magazine, Dr. Laura Perspective. She was the editor, her husband a contributing photographer, and her son the creative consultant. The magazine has ceased publication.

Schlessinger was invited to the editorial board of Skeptic magazine in 1994 after taking a stand against recovered memory therapy, but resigned abruptly in 1998 after it published an issue on The God Question, insisting to its publisher Michael Shermer that there can be no question about God's existence.

Website
Schlessinger has a website that contains hints for stay-at-home parents, her blog, a reading list, and streaming audio of her shows (by subscription only). When it was started, 310,000 people tried to access it simultaneously and it crashed. Certain aspects of feminism are often discussed on her website; she was a self-proclaimed feminist in the 1970s, but is now opposed to feminism.

Charitable work
Schlessinger created the Laura Schlessinger Foundation to help abused and neglected children in 1998. Schlessinger regularly asked her on-air audience to donate items for My Stuff bags, which go to children in need. All other donations came from other people or groups, usually in the form of donated items for the bags. Per the foundation's reports, money not used for operations was directed toward pro-life organizations, such as crisis pregnancy centers. In September 2004, Schlessinger announced that she was closing down the foundation because it had become too difficult and costly for her husband and her to underwrite, and they wished to devote their "energies and resources to other pressing needs".

In 2007, Schlessinger began fundraising for Operation Family Fund, an organization that aids the families of fallen or seriously injured veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2008, she helped raise more than $1 million for the organization.

In 2017, Dr. Laura began donating proceeds from the sale of jewelry and glass art she designs and hand makes to Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation, a charitable organization that provides college scholarships to military children who lost a parent in the line of duty.

Awards
She was the first woman to win the Marconi Award for Network/Syndicated Personality of the Year (1997). In 1998 she received the American Women in Radio & Television's Genii Award. She was on the Forbes top 100 list of celebrities in 2000 with estimated earnings of $13 million. In September 2002, the industry magazine Talkers named Schlessinger as the seventh-greatest radio talk-show host of all time. In 2005 and 2008,

Schlessinger received a National Heritage award from the National Council of Young Israel in March 2001. She also received the National Religious Broadcasters Chairman's Award, and has lectured on the national conservative circuit. She was the commencement speaker at Hillsdale College in June 2002, and was awarded an honorary degree as a doctor of tradition and culture.

In 2007, Schlessinger was given an Exceptional Public Service award by the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. In 2008, Talkers presented her with an award for outstanding community service by a radio talk-show host.

Schlessinger most recently was named to the National Radio Hall of Fame, Class of 2018. Schlessinger and Nanci Donnelan (the Fabulous Sports Babe) are the first two women with their own national radio shows to be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Religious beliefs
Born to a Jewish father and an Italian Catholic mother, Schlessinger was raised in Brooklyn in a home that was without religion.
Schlessinger was not religious until  she started to practice Conservative Judaism in 1996. In 1998, Schlessinger, Bishop, and their son converted to Orthodox Judaism. and began instruction under Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. During this time, Schlessinger sometimes used Jewish law and examples to advise her callers about their moral dilemmas. She occasionally clarified ethical and moral issues with her local Orthodox Rabbi Moshe D. Bryski, before mentioning them on the air. She was embraced by many in the politically conservative segment of Orthodox Judaism for bringing more awareness of Orthodoxy to her radio show. Some of her expressed views were explicitly religious and are referenced her 1999 book The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life.

In July 2003, Schlessinger announced on her show that she was no longer an Orthodox Jew, but that she was still Jewish.

Marriage and family life
Schlessinger met and married Michael F. Rudolph, a dentist, in 1972 while she was attending Columbia University. The couple had a Unitarian ceremony. Separating from Rudolph, Schlessinger moved to Encino, California in 1975, when she obtained a job in the science department at the University of Southern California. Their divorce was finalized in 1977.

In 1975, while working in the labs at USC, she met Lewis G. Bishop, a professor of neurophysiology, who was married and the father of three children. Bishop separated from his wife and began living with Schlessinger the same year. Schlessinger has vociferously proclaimed her disapproval of unwed couples "shacking up" and having children out of wedlock. According to her friend Shelly Herman, "Laura lived with Lew for about nine years before she was married to him." His divorce was final in 1979. Bishop and Schlessinger married in 1985. Herman says that Schlessinger told her she was pregnant at the time, which Herman recalls as "particularly joyful because of the happy news." Schlessinger's only child, a son named Deryk, was born in November 1985. Schlessinger's husband died November 2, 2015, after being ill for 1.5 years.

Schlessinger was estranged from her sister for years, and many thought she was an only child. She had not spoken to her mother for 18 to 20 years before her mother's death in 2002 from heart disease. Her mother's remains were found in her Beverly Hills condo about two months after she died, and lay unclaimed for some time in the Los Angeles morgue before Schlessinger had them picked up for burial. Concerning the day that she heard about her mother's death, she said: "Apparently she had no friends and none of her neighbors were close, so nobody even noticed! How sad." In 2006, Schlessinger wrote that she had been attacked in a "vulgar, inhumane manner by media types" because of the circumstances surrounding her mother's death, and that false allegations had been made that she was unfit to dispense advice based on family values. She said that she had not mourned the deaths of either of her parents because she had no emotional bond to them.

Controversies

Libel lawsuit
In 1998, Schlessinger was in a Costa Mesa surf shop with her son when she began perusing the skateboarding magazine Big Brother. On her radio program, Schlessinger declared the magazine to be "stealth pornography". When the owner of the store publicly denied that she found pornography in his store, Schlessinger sued him for lying, claiming that his denial had hurt her reputation. When the case went to court, the judge dismissed her suit, but the shop owner's $4 million defamation countersuit lodged for hurting the reputation of his store was allowed to stand. The suit has since been settled, but the terms of the settlement have not been revealed.

Internet publication of nude photos
In 1998, Schlessinger's early radio mentor, Bill Ballance, sold nude photos of Schlessinger to a company specializing in internet porn. The photos were taken in the mid-1970s, while Schlessinger was involved in a brief affair with the then-married Ballance. Schlessinger sued after the photos were posted on the internet, claiming invasion of privacy and copyright violation. The court ruled that Schlessinger did not own the rights to the photos. She did not appeal the ruling. She told her radio audience that she was embarrassed, but that the photos were taken when she was going through a  divorce and had "no moral authority."

Opposition to homosexuality
Over the years, Schlessinger expressed opposition to homosexuality based on biblical literalism, at one point referring to gay people as "biological errors." Her rhetoric eventually prompted a viral open letter penned in the year 2000 responding to her position that used literal text of different Bible decrees (such as those governing selling people into slavery or minor crimes with harsh penalties such as stoning) to expose the perceived hypocrisy of biblical literalism.

Use of racial slur
On August 10, 2010, Nita Hanson, a black woman married to a white man, called Schlessinger's show to ask for advice on how to deal with a husband who did not care when she was the subject of racist comments by acquaintances. Schlessinger first replied that "some people are hypersensitive" and asked for some examples from the caller. Hanson informed Schlessinger that her acquaintances had stated, "How you black people do this? You black people like doing that." Schlessinger responded that her examples were not racist and that "a lot of blacks only voted for Obama simply because he was half black. Didn't matter what he was going to do in office; it was a black thing. You gotta know that. That's not a surprise." Schlessinger continued by telling the caller that she had a "chip on [her] shoulder," was "sensitive," and also, "Don't NAACP me," and, "a lot of what I hear from black think ... it's really distressing and disturbing."

When the caller noted that she was referred to as the "n-word" by the individuals in question, Schlessinger complained that blacks are fine with cordially using the slur among themselves, but that it was wrong when whites used it to slur them. In doing so, she uttered "nigger" 11 times, albeit not directed at the caller. She discussed the word and its use by blacks and in black media. When Hanson asked, "Is it ever OK to say that word?" Schlessinger responded, "It depends how it's said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it's OK." After the call Schlessinger said, "If you're that hypersensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race." Early that evening, she wrote an apology to Los Angeles Radio People online journalist Don Barrett. A day later, as soon as she was back on the air, Schlessinger apologized. Hanson questioned the motivation and sincerity of Schlessinger's apology, believing it to be result of being "caught." Hanson also said that Schlessinger did not apologize for her comments on interracial marriage.

Schlessinger announced that, while not retiring from radio, she would end her radio show at the end of 2010:

In 2011, she began broadcasting on satellite radio with Sirius XM. Her program is also available as a podcast at iTunes and from her own website.

Bibliography
Advice books:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Religious books:
 
 
 

Children's books
 Why Do You Love Me?. With Martha Lambers, illustrated by Daniel McFeeley. HarperCollins. 1999. pp. 40. .
 But I Waaannt It!. Illustrated by Daniel McFeeley. HarperCollins. 2000. pp 40. .
 Growing Up Is Hard. Illustrated by Daniel McFeeley. HarperCollins. 2001. pp. 40. .
 Where's God? Illustrated by Daniel McFeeley. HarperCollins. 2003. pp. 40. .

Fictional portrayals
In January 1992, Schlessinger played herself in the Quantum Leap season four episode "Roberto!".

In 1999, Schlessinger was parodied as  Dr. Nora on the sitcom Frasier. The character was portrayed as having dogmatic and fundamentalist social views that promoted social conservatism. The character was also shown to have a degree that belies her therapeutic advice and was estranged from her mother.

A fictional, non-speaking depiction of Schlessinger is briefly seen in The Simpsons eleventh season episode "Treehouse of Horror X", as one of the useless people put on a rocketship headed for the Sun.

In 2000, in the episode "The Midterms" on The West Wing, the fictional "Dr. Jenna Jacobs" is scolded by President Bartlet, who criticizes her views on homosexuality, and points out she is not a doctor in any field related to morality, ethics, medicine or theology. He quotes from the Bible to point out the inconsistency of condemning certain sins but not others. Show creator Aaron Sorkin admitted to modeling Bartlet's diatribe on an anonymous "Letter to Dr. Laura," which was a popular viral email at the time.

A fictionalised version of Schlessinger is featured as an antagonist in the 2000 animated series Queer Duck.

In 2001, Schlessinger was portrayed on the claymation show Celebrity Deathmatch on the episode, A Night of Vomit. She was in a fight with Ellen DeGeneres; she lost.

See also

 Culture war
 Talk radio in the United States
 Joy Browne – radio psychologist
 Toni Grant – radio psychologist
 Santa Barbara News-Press controversy

References

External links

 Official website
 

Living people
American children's writers
American columnists
American family and parenting writers
American writers of Italian descent
American political commentators
American self-help writers
American social commentators
American social psychologists
American social workers
American talk radio hosts
Women radio presenters
American television talk show hosts
American women children's writers
Celebrity doctors
Columbia University alumni
Converts to Judaism from atheism or agnosticism
Female critics of feminism
Jewish American writers
Jewish women writers
Writers from Brooklyn
Radio personalities from Los Angeles
Radio personalities from New York City
Stony Brook University alumni
University of Southern California alumni
Journalists from New York City
American women non-fiction writers
American women columnists
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American women
Colasterion (from the Greek word for "instrument of punishment" or "house of correction") was published by John Milton with his Tetrachordon on 4 March 1645. The tract is a response to an anonymous pamphlet attacking the first edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Milton makes no new arguments, but harshly takes to task the "trivial author".

Background

Milton married in Spring 1642, and shortly after, his wife Marie Powell, left him and returned to live with her mother. The legal statutes of England did not allow for Milton to apply for a divorce and he resorted to promoting the lawfulness of divorce. Although the laws did not change, he wrote four tracts on the topic of divorce, with The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce as his first tract. The first tract was created during a time of humiliation, and Milton was motivated towards writing on the topic after reading the work of Martin Bucer on divorce. Although it is impossible to know why exactly Powell separated from Milton, it is possible that Powell's family, a strong royalist family, caused a political difference that was exacerbated by the English Civil War.

During the time of composing the tracts, Milton attempted to pursue another woman known only as Miss Davis, but this resulted in failure. He continued to pursue the topic until his wife returned to him and they were to reconcile. This reconciliation could have come in part from the failure of the royalists, including Powell's family, to prevail during the English Civil War and lacking justification to further distance themselves from Milton. According to George Thomason, an early collector of English Civil War tracts, Colasterion was published on 4 March 1645 along with Tetrachordon.

Tract
Colasterion is a personal response to the anonymous pamphlet An Answer to a Book, Intituled, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, or, A Pleas for Ladies and Gentlewomen, and all other Married Women against Divorce (1644). The work contains many insults against the anonymous author, including "wind-egg", "Serving-man", and "conspicuous gull". In the tract, Milton promotes an idea of separation, and, in his situation, a separation from his previous wife.

Notes

References
 Miller, Leo. John Milton among the Polygamophiles. New York: Loewenthal Press, 1974.
 Milton, John. Complete Prose Works of John Milton Vol II ed. Don Wolfe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.
 Patterson, Annabel. "Milton, Marriage and Divorce" in A Companion to Milton. Ed. Thomas Corns. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Works by John Milton
1645 books The relationship between religion and divorce is complicated and varied. Different religions have different perceptions of divorce. Some religions accept divorce as a fact of life, while others only believe it is right under certain circumstances like adultery. Also, some religions allow remarriage after divorce, and others believe it is inherently wrong. This article attempts to summarize these viewpoints of major world religions and some important traditions regarding divorce in each faith.

Christianity

The great majority of Christian denominations affirm that marriage is intended as a lifelong covenant, but vary in their response to its dissolubility through divorce. The Catholic Church treats all consummated sacramental marriages as permanent during the life of the spouses, and therefore does not allow remarriage after a divorce if the other spouse still lives and the marriage has not been annulled. However, divorced Catholics are still welcome to participate fully in the life of the church so long as they have not remarried against church law, and the Catholic Church generally requires civil divorce or annulment procedures to have been completed before it will consider annulment cases. Annulment is not the same as divorce - it is a declaration that the marriage was never valid to begin with. Other Christian denominations, including the Eastern Orthodox Church and many Protestant churches, will allow both divorce and remarriage even with a surviving former spouse, at least under certain conditions. For example, the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, in its 2014 Discipline, teaches:

In societies that practised Puritanism, divorce was allowed if one partner in the marriage was not completely satisfied with the other, and remarriage was also allowed. The Church of England also took an indissolublist line until 2002, when it agreed to allow a divorced person to remarry in church during a former spouse's lifetime under "exceptional circumstances."

Bible commentary on divorce comes primarily from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the epistles of Paul. Jesus taught on the subject of divorce in three of the Gospels, and Paul gives a rather extensive treatment of the subject in his First Epistle to the Corinthians chapter 7: "Let not the wife depart from her husband...let not the husband put away his wife" (1 Corinthians 7:10-11), but he also includes the Pauline privilege. He again alludes to his position on divorce in his Epistle to the Romans, albeit an allegory, when he states "For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. . . . So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress" (Romans 7:2-3).

In ,  and , Jesus came into conflict with the Pharisees over divorce concerning their well-known controversy between Hillel and Shammai about —as evidenced in Nashim Gittin 9:10 of the Mishnah. Do Jesus’ answers to the Pharisees also pertain to Christians? Are Christians who adopt these teachings Judaizers? The differences in opinions about these questions usually arise over whether Jesus opposed the Law of Moses or just some of the viewpoints of the Pharisees, and whether Jesus just addressed a Jewish audience or expanded his audience to include Christians, for example "all nations" as in the Great Commission.

Since Deuteronomy 24:1-4 did not give Jewish women the right to directly initiate a divorce (See Agunah), did Jesus' answers "in the house" to his disciples expand the rights of women or did they merely acknowledge that some Jewish women, such as Herodias who divorced Herod Boethus, were wrongfully taking rights because Jewish women were being assimilated by other cultures? (See , .) In other words, did Jesus confine his remarks to the Pharisaical questions, and did he appeal to his own authority by refuting the oral authority of the Pharisees with the formula "You have heard...But I say to you" in ? Expressions used by Jesus such as "you have heard", "it hath been said", "it is written", "have you never read", "keep the commandments", "why do you break the commandments with your traditions?" and "what did Moses Command you?" seem to indicate that Jesus generally respected the Hebrew Bible and sometimes opposed Pharisaical Opinions. He was critical of the Pharisees.

Buddhism
Buddhism has no religious concept of marriage (see Buddhist view of marriage). In Buddhism, marriage is a secular affair, subject to local customs.

Islam

According to the Quran, marriage is intended to be unbounded in time, but when marital harmony cannot be attained, the Quran allows the spouses to bring the marriage to an end (2:231). Divorce in Islam can take a variety of forms, some initiated by the husband and some initiated by the wife. The main traditional legal categories are talaq (repudiation), khulʿ (mutual divorce), judicial divorce and oaths. The theory and practice of divorce in the Islamic world have varied according to time and place. Historically, the rules of divorce were governed by sharia, as interpreted by traditional Islamic jurisprudence, and they differed depending on the legal school. Historical practice sometimes diverged from legal theory. In modern times, as personal status (family) laws were codified, they generally remained "within the orbit of Islamic law", but control over the norms of divorce shifted from traditional jurists to the state.

Judaism
Judaism has always accepted divorce as a fact of life, though an unfortunate one. Judaism generally maintains that it is better for a couple to divorce than to remain together in a state of bitterness and strife. It is said that shalom bayit (domestic harmony) is a desirable state.

Legal procedures
In general, it is accepted that for a Jewish divorce to be effective the husband must hand to the wife, and not vice versa, a bill of divorce called a get, while witnesses observe. Although the get is mainly used as proof of the divorce, sometimes the wife will tear the get to signal the end of the marriage and to ensure it is not reused. However, from ancient times, the get was considered to be very important to show all those who needed to have proof that the woman was in fact free from the previous marriage and free to remarry. In Jewish law, besides other things, the consequences of a woman remarrying and having a child while still legally married to another is profound: the child would be a mamzer, an "estranged person" to be avoided. Also, the woman would be committing adultery should she remarry while still legally married to another. An enactment called Herem de-Rabbenu Gershom (the proscription of Gershom ben Judah, accepted universally throughout European Jewish communities), prohibited a husband from divorcing his wife against her will.

In halakha (Jewish law), divorce is an act of the parties to the marriage, which is different from the approach adopted by many other legal systems. That is, a Jewish divorce does not require a decree from a court. The function of the court, in the absence of agreement between the parties, is to decide whether the husband should be compelled to give the get or for the wife to accept the get. But, notwithstanding any such ruling, the parties remain married until such time as the husband actually delivers the get.

Jewish law, in effect, does not require proof or even an allegation of moral or other fault by either party. If both parties agree to a divorce and follow the prescribed procedure, then the court would not need to establish responsibility for the marriage break-down. In this sense it is a "no-fault" approach to divorce.

A woman who has been refused a get is typically referred to as an "agunah". Where pre-nuptial agreements are enforceable in civil courts, appropriate provisions may be made to compel the giving of the get by the husband in the event of a civil divorce being obtained. However, this approach has not been accepted universally, particularly by the Orthodox.

A wife can initiate a divorce process on several grounds (including lack of satisfaction in her sexual life). However, this right extends only so far as petitioning a court to force her husband to divorce her.

One part of the complex process of divorce in Judaism, is the creation of the get itself. The get is crafted with great care and responsibility in order to ensure that no mistakes create consequences in the future. For example, exactly twelve lines are written in permanent ink telling the names of both parties, place, and time of the divorce. Because of the danger of the birth of mamzerim if the process is not performed properly, and because divorce law is extraordinarily complex, the process is generally supervised by experts.

Philosophical approaches

From the philosophical and mystical point of view, divorce is a unique procedure of tremendous importance and complexity, because it nullifies the holiest of connections that can exist in the Universe (similar to a connection between a person and God).

In some Jewish mythologies, Adam had a wife before Eve named Lilith who left him. The earliest historically documentation of this legend appears in the 8th-10th centuries Alphabet of Ben Sira. Whether this particular tradition is older is not known.

Others

Wicca
The Wiccan equivalent of a divorce is described as a handparting. Wiccans traditionally see either a high priest or high priestess to discuss things out before a divorce. However a handfasting (marriage) that falls apart peacefully does not necessarily need a handparting.

Unitarian Universalism
In Unitarian Universalism, because they affirm the "right of conscience", divorce is allowed and should be a decision by the individual person and is seen as ending a rite of passage. Such divorces have sometimes taken the form of divorce rituals as far back as the 1960s. Divorces are largely seen as a life choice.

Hinduism
In Hinduism Divorce and Remarriage is allowed. Arthashastra which is one of the sastras in Hinduism says:

A woman, hating
her husband, can not dissolve her marriage with him against his
will. Nor can a man dissolve his marriage with his wife against her
will. But from mutual enmity, divorce may be obtained
(parasparam dveshánmokshah). If a man, apprehending danger
from his wife desires divorce (mokshamichhet), he shall return to
her whatever she was given (on the occasion of her marriage). If a
woman, under the apprehension of danger from her husband,
desires divorce, she shall forfeit her claim to her property

References 

http://www.bibleissues.org, https://web.archive.org/web/20091027092358/http://geocities.com/dcheddie/divorce1.html, http://students.eng.fiu.edu/~denver/divorce1.html

Further reading
 Amato, Paul R. and Alan Booth. A Generation at Risk: Growing Up in an Era of Family Upheaval. Harvard University Press, 1997.  and . Reviews and information at 
 Gallagher, Maggie. "The Abolition of Marriage." Regnery Publishing, 1996. .
 Lester, David. "Time-Series Versus Regional Correlates of Rates of Personal Violence." Death Studies 1993: 529–534.
 McLanahan, Sara and Gary Sandefur. Growing Up with a Single Parent; What Hurts, What Helps. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994: 82.
 Morowitz, Harold J. "Hiding in the Hammond Report." Hospital Practice August 1975; 39.
 Office for National Statistics (UK). Mortality Statistics: Childhood, Infant and Perinatal, Review of the Registrar General on Deaths in England and Wales, 2000, Series DH3 33, 2002.
 U.S. Bureau of the Census. Marriage and Divorce. General US survey information. 
 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Survey of Divorce  (link obsolete).

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